MURRIETA 
The Murrieta Valley High School girls basketball team has picked the perfect time to play its best ball of the season.

Karen Wolf posted a double-double with 16 points and 13 rebounds to lead four players in double figures as the Nighthawks won their fifth straight, a 64-34 blowout victory over Santa Ana Segerstrom in the CIF Southern Section Division II-A quarterfinals Saturday night at Murrieta Valley High School.

It was one of those nights, as Murrieta Valley never trailed, shot 54 percent from the floor in the first half, didn’t miss its first free throw until the final four minutes of the game and recorded assists on five of its first six baskets as it raced out to a 15-4 lead.

Second-seeded Murrieta Valley (24-5) advances to play host to Redondo Union in the semifinals Tuesday. The Nighthawks have won their first three section playoff games by margins of 25, 16 and 30 points.

Marshall chipped in with 14 points and five rebounds. In addition to the four double-figure scorers, Murrieta Valley had five players with five rebounds or more. Brynn Dahmer had 10 points, five rebounds and three blocks. And Deshea Wilkes scored all six of her points in the second half to go along with six rebounds and four assists.

“The films we had on them, they didn’t play anywhere near that well,” Segerstrom coach Jeff Watts said. “I mean, I don’t think they missed any free throws until the end of the game.”

Senior point guard Natalie Perales showed a lot of resolve in her final game for Segerstrom, finishing with 11 points, eight rebounds and six steals. But Murrieta Valley held the Jaguars’ other big gun — 6-foot junior Kayla Stephens — to nine points and five rebounds.

Stephens scored on a 3-pointer to start the second half that drew Segerstrom to within 31-17. But those were her last points of the night and the Nighthawks knocked down all 10 of their free throws in the third quarter to built the lead back up to 24 points.

“We knew that (Stephens) can jump pretty high, so we knew one of our goals was to box her out,” Wolf said. “And box out the rest of her team.”

Segerstrom (23-6) was outrebounded 30-9 in the first half, when it missed its first 11 3-point attempts.

“We normally don’t shoot that bad,” Watts said.

Wolf didn’t score over the first 11 minutes of the game, then pumped in seven points in a little over four minutes to close out the first half. She put together another scoring flurry in the fourth quarter, pouring in seven consecutive points in a little over a minute.

“That’s the great thing about our team,” she said. “There’s just so many people we can rely on, so many different people to score.”